Are the abnormal menses also of ladies sins? But he who stated, If you happen to shall have taken a wife, you haven’t sinned; and if a virgin shall have been married, she sins not: and, Let her do what she will, she sins not, if she be married, has made it plain sufficient that marriage is not any sin. 21. But since out of many souls there shall be hereafter one City of resembling have one soul and one coronary heart in direction of God; which perfection of our unity shall be hereafter, after this sojourn in a strange land, whereby the thoughts of all shall neither be hidden one from one other, nor shall be in any matter opposed one to a different; on this account the Sacrament of marriage of our time has been so reduced to one man and one spouse, as that it’s not lawful to ordain any as a steward of the Church, save the husband of one wife.
Forsooth to apostatise from the One God, and to go into adulterous superstition of one other, is ever an evil. Therefore as to serve two or more, so to cross over from a residing husband into marriage with another, was neither lawful then, nor is it lawful now, nor will it ever be lawful. Thus we learn not that any of the holy ladies served two or extra living husbands: but we read that many females served one husband, when the social state of that nation allowed it, and the purpose of the time persuaded to it: for neither is it contrary to the character of marriage. But with the wedding of the holy fathers, I inquire not what marriage, but what continence, is on a degree: or quite not marriage with marriage; for it’s an equal gift in all instances given to the mortal nature of men; however men who use marriage, forasmuch as I find not, to compare with different males who used marriage in a far different spirit, we must require what continent individuals admit of being compared with these married persons. For there was a larger good in their marriage, than is the right good of marriage: to which without doubt the good of Continence is to be most well-liked: because they sought not sons from marriage by such responsibility as these are led by, from a sure sense of mortal nature requiring succession towards decease.
What, then, was there not in Him the virtue of continence from meat and drink, as great as in John Baptist? What, are usually not such things stated additionally in opposition to them of His household, our fathers, from one other type of utilizing of things earthy, as far as pertains to sexual intercourse; Lo, males lustful and unclean, lovers of ladies and lewdness? For John came neither eating nor drinking; and so they stated, He has a satan; the Son of Man got here each consuming and drinking; and so they stated, Lo, a glutton and wine-bibber, a good friend of publicans and sinners. Eating disorders stem from particular person body dysmorphia, or an excessive preoccupation with perceived flaws in appearance. And but as in Him that was not true, though it had been true that He abstained not, even as John, from consuming and drinking, for Himself says most plainly and actually, John came, not eating, nor drinking; the Son of Man got here eating and drinking: so neither is this true in these Fathers; though there has come now the Apostle of Christ, not wedded, nor begetting, so that the heathen say of him, He was a magician; but there got here then the Prophet of Christ, marrying and begetting sons, in order that the Manichees say of him, He was a man fond of girls: And knowledge, says He, has been justified of her youngsters.
23. Nor, in that the Law orders a man to be purified even after intercourse with a spouse, does it show it to be sin: except it’s that which is allowed by the use of pardon, which also, being in excess, hinders prayers. But, as the Law units many things in sacraments and shadows of things to come back; a sure as it had been material formless state of the seed, which having received kind will hereafter produce the body of man, is set to signify a life formless, and untaught: from which formless state, forasmuch because it behooves that man be cleansed by form and teaching of learning; as a sign of this, that purification was ordered after the emission of seed. And, whoever denies this to be good he knows not God, the Creator of all things good, from things heavenly even unto issues earthly, from things immortal even unto things mortal.